St Mary, Eynesbury, St Neots, Cambridgeshire
And so to the last parish church in Cambridgeshire. It could be mentioned that it has taken me longer to full this county than any other, because I was to start with taken into a Cambridgeshire church to be baptised fifty-seven years in the past at the age of two months. Be that as it might, I begun going to the Cambridgeshire churches in earnest about 4 a long time in the past, partly as a end result of an enthusiasm for household historical past. Much more than 30 Cambridgeshire parishes and their churches ended up homes to my ancestors of the previous 4 generations. Listed here, they were baptised, married and despatched on their remaining journey to the grave.
Cambridgeshire is a curious county. A satisfying parallelogram in shape, stretching some forty miles from corner to corner, it has only existed in its present variety considering that 1974, when it was made by the union of the two shorter-lived counties of Huntingdon & Peterborough and Cambridgeshire & the Isle of Ely. These had been created in their turn in 1965 out of four more compact counties, these remaining Huntingdonshire, the Soke of Peterborough, Cambridgeshire and the Isle of Ely. The Isle was returning to its standing of ahead of the 1890s, when it experienced been hived off from Cambridgeshire for administrative functions. Before the 1890s, the Soke of Peterborough experienced been a aspect of Northamptonshire. Even now with me? Very good. The 1974 iteration of the county took in a single parish just about every from Bedfordshire and Essex, and then in the 1990s dropped a single parish to Suffolk.
It all sounds a little bit of a hotchpotch, and however it appears to be to function. Of all the amalgamated counties developed in 1974, Cambridgeshire is the only one which has survived by community will. Avon and Humberside have been consigned to heritage, Leicestershire damaged up once again into its constituent parts. But in Cambridgeshire, the previous county of Huntingdonshire has been allowed to survive as a nearby government district, as has the Soke of Peterborough which continues in expanded kind as the Peterborough unitary authority.
The towns of Cambridge and Peterborough have each expanded spectacularly due to the fact 1965, and the county is the only non-metropolitan area to have an elected mayor directing thousands and thousands of lbs to enhancement tasks. The population of about a million is break up far more or considerably less 50 percent-and-50 % concerning city and rural configurations. The west and south of the county are quite affluent, but the Fenland district in the north-east has deep pockets of poverty, as do the metropolitan areas of Cambridge and Peterborough.
I invested the initial 20 decades of my everyday living in Cambridgeshire, most of it in Cambridge, and it is nonetheless difficult not to think of it as residence. And so this has provided a distinctive resonance to my journeys about the county. Cambridgeshire’s church buildings are not magnificent. In fact, it is difficult to detect a unique Cambridgeshire design and style at all, other than a liking for octagonal tower tops, and they are not so extremely plentiful. But Cambridgeshire shares borders with more other counties than any other English county, and the churches around individuals borders are inclined to acquire on the attributes of the other county – massive, marshland church buildings up around Norfolk and Lincolnshire, compact, homely church buildings down towards Hertfordshire and Essex, grand Perpendicular church buildings by the Suffolk border, though west of Huntingdon the spired churches merge seamlessly into their Northamptonshire counterparts. Strikingly, Cambridgeshire’s extremely finest churches are very a lot all near a border with a different county.
Of system, the county has two key medieval cathedrals at Peterborough and Ely, as nicely as a selection of higher education chapels in Cambridge, some of which are medieval in origin, together with the breathtaking chapel of King’s College, as excellent as a cathedral. I have involved these on my journey, so by the time John and I acquired to the St Neots suburb of Eynesbury at a quarter to 4 on a late autumn afternoon I had presently visited 314 Cambridgeshire churches. St Mary at Eynesbury would be the remaining parish church.
We hadn’t intended to be so late. We’d arrived in St Neots at about two o’clock, prepared to pay a visit to the 3 city centre churches, all of which ahead of 1965 served independent cities. If Cambridgeshire is an odd amalgam, then St Neots is odder nonetheless. 5 towns and villages merge into each individual other in the south-west corner of the county to type St Neots, which, with additional than 40,000 people today, can declare to be ‘the most significant city in Cambridgeshire’ (Cambridge and Peterborough each currently being cities of class). The parishes of St Neots town and Eynesbury type the city centre, with the parish of Eaton Socon on the opposite financial institution of the Terrific Ouse, and Eaton Ford, which kinds a element of the parish, to the north of it. Little Paxton, the poshest parish, keeps itself a little at arms length, but once again only by the width of a river. The Bedfordshire border runs along two sides of the town, and in fact, until finally 1965 components of the town were being in Bedfordshire.
All a few medieval church buildings in St Neots town centre are significant, and all a few are dedicated to St Mary, which can be the result in of some confusion. St Mary at St Neots and St Mary at Eynesbury are just a couple of hundred yards apart, divided by a compact bridge, though St Mary at Eaton Socon sits 50 % a mile or so to the south-west of them. The Eaton Socon church is heartily Evangelical in character, but the Eynesbury and St Neots town church buildings are both of those in the Anglo-Catholic custom, and I am tricky place to assume of two other this sort of Significant churches so near jointly, particularly in a modest city, and considering that they are in independent benefices.
We experienced found the Eaton Socon church locked. The sign appeared to recommend that if you tipped up in the morning on a weekday you may possibly uncover the adjacent office environment open up, and presumably they just may well allow you into the church, while as amazing as the Perpendicular exterior is there would not be a lot to see, as the church was gutted by fireplace in 1930. The only old point remaining is the font. Still, this was our thirteenth church of the working day, and the initial one we experienced observed locked, so we weren’t far too disappointed.
We headed off and parked in the vicinity of the Eynesbury church. This was also locked, but there was a keyholder observe, so I rang him up. He seemed a very little shocked, but informed us he’d be coming down in about an hour’s time, would that do? I said it would. We walked the shorter length up to the St Neots city church, which was open of class, as it is just about every working day. Another large, impressive Perpendicular church, but not plenty of within of it to fill an hour, so we drove out to Terrific Paxton and its late Saxon church, which John had not frequented right before, and then again into town to hold our appointment.
Eynesbury church is massive, even though contrary to its two sisters it is mostly Early English in origin, with previously arcades and afterwards aisles. The tower was considerably rebuilt in the 17th Century, and appears to be it. The tower is most strange in that it is set from the most easterly bay of the south aisle of the nave. The nave extends westwards to the avenue line, which is also in opposition to the north side, and so this describes the tower’s placement. Of the three churches, this is the most urban in look, and would not look out of area in the centre of Cambridge.
The Early English inside is at initial somewhat dim, for as at St Neots, this church was practically entirely glazed in the 19th Century with colored glass, a great deal of it by Hardman & Co. But, though the nave is almost as huge as at the other church, it does not sense like a barn. Instead, the reduce roof and the dusty furnishings give a feeling of clutter, however not in a negative way. This is a rough and all set church which has shaped by itself to the requires and needs of its parishioners more than the generations. Arthur Blomfield led the 19th Century restoration, and his acquainted ambiance lies seriously below. The view east is to the good rood, the 1933 do the job of Albert Richardson who had just finished restoring Eaton Socon.
I was delighted to find out that what I experienced taken for reticence in our host turned out to be a cheerful dryness. He was extremely welcoming, answered our inquiries, but still left us just to wander close to as he pottered about. I requested him about the Anglo-catholic custom of the two church buildings. He didn’t seem to be to consider it was unusual to obtain two city churches in the Anglo-Catholic custom so near with each other, which I discovered unusually reassuring. “We like to think we’re just that small bit bigger than that large amount up the highway,” he noticed. I questioned him how to pronounce Eynesbury (I have always rhymed the to start with syllable with lines). “Properly, we get in touch with it Ains-bury,” he stated, “even though I will not know if which is appropriate.”
Continue to we wandered. The 17th Century pulpit was declared unusually attractive by Pevsner’s revising editor, and he’s suitable, the outcome partly the result of its resetting on an stylish stem in the 1970s. Other woodwork consists of the ideal medieval bench finishes we had noticed all working day, carved with animals which includes pigs, bulls and a camel. Some of them appear to have been adapted and extra to alternatively crudely, most likely in the 17th Century. Could this have been an try to mend the effects of iconoclasm? If so, it would be interesting to know what was there right before.
In the middle of the nave is a fashionable memorial slab to an Eynesbury parishioner who died two hundred a long time ago. James Toller was just twenty a single many years outdated. What will make him impressive is that he was a person of the tallest people today who have at any time lived. Close to this location lies all that is mortal of James Toller (The Eynesbury Giant) who died 4th February 1818 aged 21 decades, 8 feet 1½ inches in peak. James Toller was born in the highway beside the church in 1797. Tall from an early age, in his teens he was exhibited in London and presented to the Russian Tsar. He was toured through Europe with a Dutchman named Simon Paap who was only twenty eight inches tall.
The fantastic individuals of Eynesbury appear to have addressed James cheerfully as one of their have, but his popular fame at some point made it unachievable for him to stay a regular life, and, as his wellness deteriorated, he used his last years powering the substantial walls of the rectory back garden. He was buried inside of the church for, it was claimed, a bounty of £20 experienced been issued for his corpse by dissectionists. In his lifetime a height of 8 foot 6 was claimed for James, but a measurement of his skeleton when it was reburied right after the 19th Century restoration of the inside gave a more true measurement, which was still impressive.
And so, that was it, the final parish church in Cambridgeshire, a suitably quirky put for a quirky county. There are even now loads of non-conformist chapels to check out, as well as the chapels of cemeteries, faculties and other establishments of course. But for now, the pleasure of a position concluded accompanied me as we headed back again to Ely station.
Posted by Simon Knott on 2018-11-11 08:36:45
Tagged: , Eynesbury , St Neots , Cambridgeshire , Cambs , Huntingdonshire , Hunts , church , East Anglia
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